What's in a Ring?
by eoraptor
Summary: An old romantic symbol... but even with your basic average girl, simple can be mind-numbingly complex. KIGO, ONESHOT


"_**What's in a ring?"**_

By Eoraptor

_Kim Possible property of The Walt Disney Company. This work is not for profit, protected by derivative copyright. Rated T for mild language._

* * *

><p>"What the Heck is this?" Kim looked at the small box she'd been given.<p>

Part of her recoiled instantly at the thing. She might be in a lesbian relationship now, but she'd been raised in a somewhat traditional household, and rings in small square boxes carried some import. At least Shego wasn't kneeling and there was no special music playing.

"A Ring, Dumb Ass, what's it look like?" Shego's tone was its usual mixture of acidic and coy, with a touch of uncertainty. She felt like they'd be past the stage of questioning each others' motives by this point in their relationship.

"Well, I can see that…. But…" Kim held the box in both hands, afraid to upset the dark stone inside, "Why?"

"Because you are my smoking almost-as-hot-as-me girlfriend, and I want you to have something nice to wear from time to time that doesn't shoot lasers or turn into a quadra-pod."

"Penta-pod" Kim corrected automatically about her new baseball cap that could self-ambulate. After a long moment she sighed, "Where did you get it?"

"A store. A jewelry store. With a jeweler." Shego winced. She detected a note of suspicion in the redhead's question.

The heroine withdrew the ring from the box, wincing herself at the tone in Shego's response, knowing she had hit a nerve with that and vowing to do better. "The occasion? And don't give me that line about being nice or romantic… you are many things… but given to grandiose gestures you are not."

Shego smirked a bit, leaning a hip against the table; this was more like it… casual insults she could take all day. "In case you hadn't seen a calendar in the past three weeks, it's Singles Awareness Day. I wanted you to be aware that you are not single."

Kim almost recoiled from the ring at that, until Shego grabbed her hand, interpreting the twitches she made that no other person would likely have seen, "Whoa Princess… that's ALL it means… notice that it's neither white nor gold? Not an engagement ring."

Indeed the redhead did notice the statement matched the description. The ring was a svelt woman's ring, but it was definitely not traditional or remarkably feminine. The stone was a traditional cut; blood red with a sharp fire to it, but little internal color. No other stones or chips or filigrees flanked it, however. Just one moderately sized stone. The band was a silky not-quite-white grey with only a few incisions to feminize it.

"Princess Cut… Of course," the heroine rolled her eyes and was tempted to flick the bobble at her partner.

After a moment she slipped it onto an appropriate not-engaged finger and considered it. Then she leaned in and hugged the taller woman tightly round the neck, rising up onto her toes, "Thank you!"

Shego didn't let the redhead see her smile at the praise, but merely held her a moment longer than was needed. And then Kim's wrist kimmunicator sounded and they had to bound off for action.

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><p>"Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten me into," Shego rolled her eyes as they sat inside the acrylic sphere, robbed of all of their equipment and about to be Zipped together with a pair of bunny rabbits so DNAmy and Frugal Lucre could sell them to some demented strip-club owner<p>

"Hey… you're the one who didn't see the invisible eye-beams…" the redhead retorted, clawing a hand through her hair, "Trust me Kimmie I can see beams… there's none here…!"

"Hey!" Shego sneered at the parroting, "Not my fault they were in the UV spectrum! I only see in visible and infrared!"

Kim huffed, shaking her head. After a long moment she ran her hand along the transparent sphere, "Okay, so, no claws, no knives, no lasers… Can't cut our way out. No kimmunicator to call for help, and Ron is on the other side of the compound chasing Yori-bunni. I… guess I'm open to suggestions."

Shego considered the walls for a few moments, "If I tried to burn us out, we'd probably suffocate before I could heat this crap high enough, acrylic is a bitch for spot heating. Hmmmm."

Hmmm was what the redhead didn't want to hear, and she made that feeling known with a groan. Then she yelped as her new ring caught a strand of her hair and tugged it. "Ow! Eeeesh even your ring is pissing me off today!"

"My ring…?" Shego looked askance at her partner and then brightened, "My ring! Use the ring Lonestar!"

"The… Ring?" the heroine eyed her girlfriend and then her hand archly. "You said it _didn't_ have any special features or functions on it."

"Yeah… but I never said it's _not_ _special_…" Shego shook her head, taking Kim's hand and rapping it on the plastic bubble they were contained within.

"It's like, garnet or ruby on silver, right? It will take me hours to cut through… we don't have hours… we have minutes till DNAmy comes back, maybe an hour till our air runs out if not." The younger woman frowned, taking her hand back.

"Yeah, it's like ruby and silver, in that it's those colors…" Shego rolled her eyes and grabbed Kim's hand again, making her punch the bubble, "In that it's those colors…"

Kim was surprised when the supposedly soft ring did not deform under the rough treatment, but instead curled a small sliver out of the plastic of the bubble, "What the heck?"

"Doy… I know my girlfriend… You think I'm going to spend a couple hundred bucks on something she'll trash inside a week just living life?"

"So…"

"So I spent several thousand dollars on a ring that ought to last till the heat death of the universe, or our next really big fight," Shego smirked wryly and indicated the scar in the bubble, "It's Rhodium and a Red Diamond. If you can break that thing without my help, I'll make good on my court-ordered restitution."

Kim arched a doubtful eyebrow at her partner, but again studied the ring. She took it off her finger and did one of the gemological tests any girl knew… how to check a diamond. Holding it to her tongue confirmed it moved heat away from her like the real thing, and obviously it could cut at least hard plastic. A second to remove it and the stone also scratched the slice-proof coating on the Kimmunicator screen, which was good enough for her.

The ring itself held up to similar resistance when she tried to stand on it, and so she set to work; carving away at the plastic sphere for all that she was worth.

Even with the preternaturally hard stone and metal, it would have taken hours of hand work to make a hole. Thankfully, they didn't need it. Once Kim had weakened the previously pristine interior of the bubble with some deep scars, Shego strategically heated them with her plasma.

With both girls working together on their backs, a few good kicks had them free just as their corpulent captor returned with the rabbits they were to be merged with.

Kim and Shego made fast work of DNAmy, and found Lucre had already fled, before retrieving Ron and his lepine ninja partner. Fixing poor Yori of her bunny ears proved to be a bit more problematic since they had cut their way free of Amy's machine, ruining it in the process; but fortunately the scientist had an older backup hidden away.

Free of their teammates for the rest of the evening, Shego and Kim stayed in, as was their wont to do, avoiding hectic Valentine's Day crowds. As they did so, kim considered her new bobble.

She spent a few minutes picking strands of plastic out of the fitting, but otherwise found it utterly unharmed by today's rough treatment. Shaking her head she turned, considering the woman who had given it to her.

"Cold, hard, sharp, dark… but it kept me safe," She said just loudly enough for her paramour to hear as she made a show of putting the ring back on her finger. "Maybe I'll keep it around."


End file.
